


For Sonja, With Love

by obscurial



Category: SKAM (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Charity Shop, Artist!Even, But it's pretty close, Fluff, I wouldn't say it's tooth-rotting fluff, M/M, Past Sonja/Even, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-02
Updated: 2017-10-02
Packaged: 2019-01-08 01:53:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12244788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/obscurial/pseuds/obscurial
Summary: The inscription baffles Isak to his core – who exactly was this Sonja, and what on earth made her want to leave such a beautiful expression of love by his charity shop’s doorway?(An au where Isak runs a charity shop, and finds one of Even's paintings at his doorstep.)





	For Sonja, With Love

**Author's Note:**

> a big thank you to [melanie](http://twitter.com/heavydusk/status/912167633625153536) for inspiring this idea!! i hope that we'll learn the story of cody and ryan one day!!!

Isak prides himself on not being a nosy guy.

He doesn’t question the, frankly, _quite_ questionable items left abandoned by the wooden doorway of his charity shop, choosing to dust them off immaculately and place them on display instead, hoping that they’re good enough to warrant a second owner. They’re charming things, really.

From a delicate porcelain figurine that’s missing a leg, to a quaint flask that disguises itself as a pocket watch… It’s almost as if each individual item has their own tale to tell, a personality, or even a sense of _homeliness_ that simply does not come with the bland, mass-produced goods from department stores.

Isak often finds himself growing attached to the strange yet fascinating items lying beneath his welcome bell every morning, which honestly doesn’t help at all when he’s meant to be putting them up for sale, but hey, if he finds them good enough to keep, that means somebody else is likely to purchase them, which means that more money’s going to charity. (That’s the mantra Isak repeats in his head every time a customer takes home an item that’s wormed its way into his heart.)

He’s been running the shop for years now – it used to belong to his parents, but after his mother was admitted into a psychiatry ward and his father fled for Sweden, the store’s pretty much his to run as he pleases.

Carrying the last of the batch into the store, Isak notices that he’s accidentally left behind a small canvas painting to pitifully lean against the doorway in sorry isolation.

He sets the items down carefully onto the counter before heading back to the doorway, where reaches down to pick it up, the pads of his fingers lightly brushing off dirt from its sides.

There’s something about this painting that makes it awfully hard to put down.

It’s a portrait of a woman. She’s painted with the most expressive of brushstrokes, effortlessly capturing the fine wisps of her soft locks – but the painting’s not done in realism, it’s highly stylised, and the unnatural patches filling in her cheeks suggest that perhaps the artist struggled with mixing a colour suitable for her skin tone. Isak feels oddly moved by the painting, almost as if he could feel the raw _emotion_ that was invested into the work, could feel the intense passion and adoration from the artist, translated into their purposeful brushstrokes.

But what _really_ captures Isak’s interest is the small scrawl of lettering in the bottom right hand corner of the canvas.

_For Sonja, with love._

_Even_

The inscription baffles Isak to his core – who exactly was this _Sonja_ , and what on earth made her want to leave such a beautiful expression of love by his charity shop’s doorway?

Tracing his finger across the textured surface, he shakes his head in disbelief, a combination of both pity and awe bubbling deep within him as he admires the work with a heavy heart. He can hardly imagine how _terribly_ their love must’ve crashed and burned, for this sincere declaration of raw affection to end up where it is right now, in a charity shop in one of the _seediest_ places in Norway.

Deciding to honour Even, whoever he was, Isak places the painting in the shop window display, hoping that wherever _Sonja_ was, she was truly _ashamed_ of herself for carelessly, cruelly tossing away this fragment of Even’s heart.

Returning to the counter, Isak begins to dust and sort out the rest of the items, whilst the mysterious painting in the window continues to linger amongst the depths of his mind, the woman’s face imprinting itself deep into his head.

\---

“Excuse me?”

Isak flinches, sheepishly shoving his book aside (he’s embarrassed that he didn’t notice a customer at the counter, but also equally as embarrassed that he got caught reading a romance novella that he found by the doorway this morning) and he frantically searches for something on the desk to stand in as a temporary bookmark, his back still turned to the customer.

The man continues to speak, voice rumbling with a sense of urgency.

“Sorry, I just, that painting? In the shop display? Did you happen to see the person who dropped it off?”

Resorting to doggy earing the page (his heart absolutely breaks into two when he folds the page down), Isak turns to face the customer at last, and good _god_ , he was _definitely_ not expecting to come face to face with anyone younger than the age of 52, let alone an unfairly handsome man who appears to be around his age. Isak’s completely taken aback, his eyes wide and unblinking – if he recalls correctly, he’s never seen _anyone_ below their fifties in this store in the last few years.

“Right, uh, no, I’m sorry, I didn’t see the person who dropped it off,” he replies, shoulders rigid from the man’s piercing stare. He feels a little self-conscious and so he hunches into himself, loose shirt clinging onto his shoulders for dear life.

The man nods slowly, swallowing the lump in his throat nervously, and at the back of his mind, Isak muses that the man might just be affected by his presence too. He tries his best not to crack into a smile at the thought.

“Why do you ask? Do you know who painted it?” Isak finds himself asking, his curiosity getting the better of him as he instinctively leans towards the man with his elbows on the counter, eager to learn more about the painting that’s been haunting his thoughts all morning.

Chuckling quietly to himself, the man allows his gaze to settle onto the painting wistfully, eyes clouded with a forlorn mist. It is this very moment that something _clicks_ within Isak, the expression on the man’s face conveying more than it offers, speaking directly and openly to Isak’s heart.

Barely speaking above a whisper, Isak’s voice slips out from between his lips, soft and hesitant, “ _Even?_ ”

A crooked smile makes its way across his tired face, carving into his beautiful features sadly.

“That obvious, huh?”

Without even realising it, Isak’s calloused hands curl into tight fists, quivering from sheer outrage.

“I… I just don’t understand. How could anyone be that _heartless_? You’ve poured your god damned soul out onto the canvas, you’ve exposed yourself to the entire world and made yourself _vulnerable_ , something hardly _anyone_ ever does nowadays, and she just- She threw it away, just like _that_?”

Narrowing his eyes, Isak glares at Sonja’s visage, frustration rolling off of him in huffs and silent trembles. Her once serene and beautiful beam is nothing but a mocking grimace now, and Isak feels a dangerous urge for violence surging through his wrists, pure adrenaline thumping against his eardrums loud and clear.

“I’m sorry, but I’m fucking _furious_ for you, Even. This is not okay. I can’t believe anyone could be so horrible, _god_ , I’m so sorry that you have to see your feelings splayed out like that- O-Oh my _god_ , I’m so sorry that I just put it up on display like that, that was _so_ insensitive of me, I just-“

Isak startles at the sensation of warm hands enveloping his own, thumbs soothingly rubbing circles into his knuckles and easing the tension built in the webs of his fingers.

“Hey,” Even whispers, and Isak instantaneously _melts_ the moment he meets Even’s eyes because no one’s _ever_ looked at him that way before – no one’s ever looked at him with such patience and such _wonder_ in the same way as Even did that very moment. “Don’t worry, okay? I’m not bothered by it at all. It was a long time ago, and we didn't exactly part ways amicably, so I understand why she did it. But thank you so, so much. Your words mean so much to me, truly."

The tension slowly bleeds from Isak’s shoulders, only for him to feel completely _mortified_ at his sudden outburst.

“Oh my god, I- I don’t know why I said all that, I don’t even _know_ you,” he rambles, pulling his hands away from Even’s in a desperate attempt to regain his professionalism, “I’m so sorry, it probably wasn’t my place to assume and I was probably overstepping my boundaries, I’m gonna- I’m gonna go dust some crockery right now.”

Moving away from the counter with the tips of his ears tinged a deep scarlet, Isak hurriedly locks himself in the storage room with his back pressed against the door and his head spinning from the rapid loss of adrenaline. _I have got to do something about my anger management issues_ , he thinks to himself in utter embarrassment, burying his burning face into his cool palms.

He waits for the tell-tale ring of the welcome bell, signalling that Even had left the store, before shamefully exiting the storage room with his head hung low, humiliation clinging to him like a second skin. With hesitant fingers, he takes down the portrait in the window display, choosing to hang it up alongside the other paintings in the shop while trying his very best not to allow his gaze to linger on Even’s cursive handwriting.

He fails. All that’s running through his head right now is Even’s wonderfully sculpted hands, the very same ones that held his own not that long ago, etching beautiful letters onto the canvas… Brushing his fingertips across the golden lettering, he indulges himself in the illusion of being somewhat _closer_ to him. But illusions will _stay_ as illusions, and Isak bitterly thinks to himself that he will never see that gorgeous man in his store ever again.

With an ever-suffering sigh, Isak returns to the counter, dreading the last few hours left of opening time. But as he reaches for the romance novel that he had haphazardly thrown across the table earlier, he finds that the corner of the page he had previously folded down is straightened out again, and in its place lies a frail, yellow dandelion.

Smiling to himself, Isak resumes his reading, the stalk of the dandelion pinched firmly between his fingertips and glittering blue eyes embedded within his memory.

\---

Ducking his chin into the comforting warmth of his woollen scarf, Isak shoves his freezing hands further into the depths of his pockets, the cold morning air sharp and piercing against the fragile skin in his nostrils.

It’s almost as if his entire body is in autopilot mode, his legs automatically knowing exactly where to take him, the routine of waking up at ungodly hours in the morning to open his charity shop across the road deeply ingrained in his muscle memory.

Weaving his way through the cluttered piles of abandoned items surrounding his store, Isak idly thinks about perhaps installing an item bin near the entrance. But just as he reaches the doorway of his store, he halts in his steps.

Leaning against the battered doorframe, beneath his rusty welcome bell, is a painting.

Isak reaches down to pick it up, and his reddened lips part in an inaudible gasp because holy _shit_ , it’s a painting of _him_.

He’s painted with the most _expressive_ of brushstrokes, fine lines in all the colours of the sun painted loosely on the crown of his head. His eyes, good _god_ , his eyes look absolutely _marvellous_ – almost as if precious peridot stones had been carefully plucked from their ores and placed into the irises of his eyes, shining and sparkling in all magnificent hues of green.

Isak hurriedly unlocks the door to the store with shaky hands, eager to view the painting under decent lighting, and not just the dim beams of dawn from above.

Flicking on the lights hastily, he’s mercilessly thrown into the sheer brilliance of the painting. Like before, it’s not done in realism, yet Isak can _definitely_ recognise enough of his own features to come to the conclusion that the subject in the portrait is himself; the tiny freckle just above his upper lip, the slightly upturned curve of his nose, the telling dip of his cupid’s bow and so on.

Isak chokes out a strangled laugh, because he realises that he’s painted while halfway through a rant, his furrowed eyebrows and expressive hand gestures accurately conveying his raw passion and indignation.

Hope budding deep in his chest, Isak allows his eyes to trail down to the bottom right hand corner of the canvas, one particular name ringing through his head like a religious chant. He finds the familiar golden handwriting.

_To the boy who speaks only from his heart,_

_You now have mine too._

_Even_

 

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you enjoyed reading this as much as i enjoyed writing it!! kudos and comments would be greatly appreciated <3
> 
>  


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